Your Favorite Pedal Mods?

[MrShake]

I was re-organizing and doing some maintenance and cleaning of my gear recently and appreciating some of the little things that can be done to basic, classic pedals to give them a little something extra. I have a few that I'd find myself cranky without, and they were fun steps in learning some basic DIY skills. The ones I tend to love the most generally retain the character of the pedal but give extended functionality, such as:

Rat - Clipping Diodes Switch
Straightforward enough to do with the right instructions. My choices are usually Classic and Turbo on a 2-way switch, but if I use an on/off/on, the Clean Rat is pretty neat. But for gigs or recording, if the EQ isn't cutting it, having a Turbo Rat just a flick of a switch away is awesome. The Ruetz mod has never done it for me, sorta de-Rattifies what I like about the Rat in the first place. That bite. Bonus points for socketing the IC chip, but that's sorta different. And for face-mounting the flickering Turbo LEDs next to the stomp switch.

Big Muff - Tone Bypass Switch
Made stompable on my NYC Muff after discovering it on my Tone Wicker. The boosted mids make for a bulldozer tone. May you never be lost in the mix again.

Fender Blender RI - Vintage Spec Mod
Remove one component, replace another with a jumper, and swap two wire positions on the boost switch poles. Turned a cool sounding pedal with anemic volume into destruction-breathing monster. I also didn't realize until recently how bonkers the market was for these reissues right now. The mod makes a valuable pedal invaluable.

The only thing I've ever sent away for modding was an 18v Electric Mistress, and that was to repair it, though I had the volume drop fixed while I was at it, which is great, but not cool and fun and flashy like those 3 up there. People seem to love their JHS/Keeley/etc modded pedals. Then there's bias knobs on Fuzz Faces, DS-1 and BD-2 rebuilds, etc. I'm even thinking about getting out the drill and "Swervedrivering" my DF-2 once I find a switch I approve of.

Are there any mods to classic pedals that you just can't live without?

[mackerelmint]

Yanking C6 from the Boss SD-1. Just snip it outta there, and get a bit more of an open sound with more bottom end.

[August]

Behringer UV300 slow mod.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cs1aRrFUyE

Edit: definitely not a classic, but makes it a great vibrato option.

[jorri]

Yes the Rat clipping mods are great. Got a couple of combined germanium, LED, mosfet as well as none in mine.

Volume mod for superfuzz. Almost essential! Octave off and a tone control would be cool too.

Less cheap now, but a while back i did the resistor mid to make a TS7 a TS808, then added an assymetrical diode because i dont know if i even like a stock TS!

[JackFawkes]

It might be the bass player in me, but I always appreciate it when a good Blend knob is added to a pedal.
In my opinion, it can give a good pedal what it needs to become a great pedal.
(I do really enjoy extra clipping selections on a RAT, the only "RAT"-style pedal I own is Black Mass' 1312, which is almost overwhelming with options )

Jack

[MayTheFuzzBeWithYou]

Infinity feedback mod on a delay!

[sessylU]

Latch mode for DD-3 Hold function.

Sort of...

[Zork]

The synth mod on a OC-2 is genius. It removes the envolope follower and low pass filter from the octave path and offers a crazy glitchy gated squarewave fuzztone madness. It's the shit.

[hulakatt]

I have a lot of modded pedals.
I've built a fair number of pedals.
I've repaired a handful of pedals.
I've built a fair number of amps.
For some reason, I've never sat down and modded any pedal or amp myself. I think if something's working, I don't want it to stop working because of something I did.

[ctu]

Behringer UV300 slow mod.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cs1aRrFUyE

Edit: definitely not a classic, but makes it a great vibrato option.

Similar to this mod, I have modified TC Electronic Tailspin vibrato with 1 μF capacitor, without the switch (I don't need it). It is basically the same effect, with TCE being in a metal enclosure but without the "rise" pot. The effect is much, much subtler now with ultra slow mod and therefore much more usable for me.

[higgsblossom]

Danelectro Spring King Delay mod:
https://jacobkorn.de/studio/danelectro- ... g-mod.html

I regret selling mine, I had no idea this was possible. It makes the Spring King a way better garage rock pedal than it already is.

[Zork]

Behringer UV300 slow mod.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cs1aRrFUyE

Edit: definitely not a classic, but makes it a great vibrato option.

Similar to this mod, I have modified TC Electronic Tailspin vibrato with 1 μF capacitor, without the switch (I don't need it). It is basically the same effect, with TCE being in a metal enclosure but without the "rise" pot. The effect is much, much subtler now with ultra slow mod and therefore much more usable for me.

Oh, cool, my Tailspin is gathering dust because it's too fast. Do you have details on the mod?

[JSett]

The Ruetz mod has never done it for me

Lol, this is my favourite mod. I've done it to almost every Rat I've ever owned.

Actually, now I think about it, my favourite mod is a universal one....putting an LED in any pedal that doesn't already have one. The single most useful modification you can do. Easy, cheap and endlessly functional...I can't think of a single non-LED pedal that isn't instantly improved by it.

[ctu]

Oh, cool, my Tailspin is gathering dust because it's too fast. Do you have details on the mod?

Sorry, just saw your post now:

https://www.reddit.com/r/diypedals/comm ... _slow_mod/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMvRlsd62PI

You don't have to use film cap, I used multi-layer capacitor and it worked just fine. I use only (ultra) slow mode so I ditched the switch, it was difficult to solder the cap as it is.

[jvin248]

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Boss MT--2 Metalzone Waza Mod

Stack a pair of Boss DS-1s, keeping them both below 50% distortion. Many use a DS-1 and TS like this but I got a couple of DS-1s as throw ins on guitar trades. Also how I got more than one MT-2...

Fuzz Face from scratch build. May mod with the JHS FF mod.


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